San Francisco: 1940 Census, July 19

The 1940 Census is in the spotlight at the next meeting of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society at 1pm Sunday, July 19, at the Jewish Community High School, 1835 Ellis Street; parking is available (Map)

Joel Weintraub will present "Preparing locational search tools for the 1940 census opening."

He will discuss the planning, unique aspects, questions, and undercount of the 1940 census and why we wait 72 years to see a U.S. census. If no 1940 name index exists when the census becomes public in 2012, geographical/locational search tools will be needed to find people.

Joel will discuss the basis of such searches (Enumeration District numbers) and what the National Archives and the Morse One-Step Web site are planning (and in some cases already have in place) to make geographical searches feasible and easy for genealogists. Those tools can be used now to find people by location on the 1880 through 1930 U.S. Census schedules.

An emeritus biology professor at California State University-Fullerton, he became interested in genealogy about 12 years ago and regularly volunteers at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Laguna Niguel.

In 2001, Joel began transcribing streets within census districts to help researchers search the 1930 US Census, and was joined, in 2002, by David Kehs and Steve Morse. Together, they have produced a large number of online census-searching utilities for the federal and New York state censuses on Steve Morse's One-Step Web site. The One-Step team already features finding aids for the 1940 census, to which will be released in 2012.

He has presented workshops for NARA, as well as lectures and computer workshops for local and international genealogy societies on census searching. Click here for more.